Blood on the Shores; Soviet SEALs in World War II

New York, N.Y.: Ivy Books, 1994. First Ballantine Books Edition [stated], First printing [stated]. Mass market paperback. Good. xiii, [1], 287, [3] pages. Maps. Illustrations. Includes Foreword, Acknowledgments, Translator's Note, Introduction, In Place of an Epilogue, Appendixes, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Also includes chapters on Early Experiences; Strength Meets Strength; On Hill 415; A Rookie Arrives in the Detachment; In a Double Ring of Encirclement; Black Devils; Before the Decisive Blow; Face to Face; and Final Missions. Viktor Nikolayevich Leonov (21 November [O.S. 8 November] 1916, in Zaraysk - 7 October 2003, in Moscow) was a Soviet Navy officer and twice Hero of the Soviet Union. Considered a legend in the Soviet era after the war, he frequently gave speeches to Communist organizations about the war, but he became obscure after the fall of the Soviet Union. After the war, Leonov continued his military service in the Northern Fleet and in the Central Office of the Soviet Navy. In 1950 he graduated from the Caspian Higher Naval Red Banner School named after Sergei Kirov in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, and in 1952, he was promoted to Captain 2nd Rank. At the port city of Wonsan, the naval scouts under Leonov's command were credited with capturing and disarming 200 officers and 3500 soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army in addition to capturing three artillery batteries, five aircraft and several ammunition depots. Leonov received the title Hero of the Soviet Union for the second time on 14 September 1945. From 1953 to 1956, he was a student of the Voroshilov Naval Academy in Leningrad. From 1957 to 1987, he worked as an engineer at the Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering in Moscow. From the Arctic Circle to the shores of Japan, Russia's most famous naval scout describes his deadly missions in the Soviet Navy's World War II version of the U.S. Navy's SEALs. In the only book on the subject, Viktor Leonov tells how these elite recon troops acquired their special skills--initially in actual combat--to beat Hitler's formidable 20th Mountain Army, which occupied Russia's Scandinavian borders and threatened the ports receiving crucial American convoys.